140 Life of Count Rum ford. 



and the meeting-house not by any means the only 

 one destroyed by the British troops for fuel was 

 stripped from necessity. There was a similar fort built 

 on a similar rise of ground at Oyster Bay for the like 

 twofold purposes of shelter and protection against 

 Yankees. 



Mr. Onderdonk writes me that he has "seen the 

 elevated conical hill in Huntington, around the base 

 of which the road winds. It was just the place for a 

 fort. It strikes the eye of the stranger at once, as he is 

 about entering the town. When I saw it, about 1842, 

 it was filled with tombstones. Many of those dis- 

 turbed by military necessity were doubtless what we 

 call field-stones, with the initials and the year of death 

 rudely cut on them." 



Colonel Thompson's presence is noted again in a 

 piece of news which reached Fishkill from Long Island 

 on December 5, 1782. "The enemy are fortifying 

 Huntington. They have pitched on a burying-ground, 

 and have dug up graves and gravestones, to the great 

 grief of the people there, who, when they remonstrated 

 against the proceeding, received nothing but abuse." 



As we have seen, Colonel Thompson is made to bear 

 the reproach of this outrage, aggravated by the charge 

 that he compelled the remonstrating people themselves 

 to assist in demolishing their church, in order to fur- 

 nish materials for his fort. 



On December 18, 1782, Thompson's corps "the 

 remains of the Queen's Rangers, and Tarlton's Legion 

 (five or six hundred)" were reported as being "at 

 Huntington to protect the trade with the mainland." 

 His force is afterwards stated as "five hundred and 

 eighty effectives." 



